I bought this guitar in 2004 on eBay from Boger City Pawn in North
Carolina primarily because it was identical to the one
Elvis used onstage in 1976
and it was an opportunity to photograph it for the page about it
here on the site. They
misrepresented it in the ad by not stating that it was a factory second
and the guitar was in need of a neck reset. Aside from that it has
an unbelievably awesome sound and despite the high action it played
excellent. However, after two years with it I decided that it had to be
right so packed it up and shipped it to Elderly Instruments for a neck
reset. The bridge was also splitting and would require the manufacture
of a new one at the same time.

After shipping it to Elderly, Arnold Hennig, came to the conclusion "that
the reason the guitar is a factory second was because the bridge was
incorrectly located, and the intonation was consequently sharp. Since it
needed to be replaced at that time and the design has plenty of open
unused space on it, it would be easy enough to make the corrections in
the course of making the new bridge."

"Ideally you
want the new bridge to fit the same footprint on the guitar's face as
the old, so as not to have to mess with the finish on the face. The
strange thing is that the bridge has the normally needed slant in saddle
position (adjusting the amount of compensation from treble to bass)
built into it, but it has been located such that the saddle is
perpendicular to the strings, i.e. there is no compensation at all,
treble or bass. Retaining the bridge position and adding the needed
compensation will result in a slightly exaggerated appearance, though I
don't believe it will be enough so to be noticeable to someone who is
not looking critically at it. The bridge pins will have to move back
about 1/8" from their present location and the holes in the face will
have to be filled and re-drilled also) and the saddle position moved
back just over 1/16" on the treble end and 5/32" on the bass end."

Pictures 1 and 2 show the problem with the scale
length. Distance nut to bridge should be twice the distance nut to 12th
fret plus approximately .01". At 2*12.67=25.34, somebody forgot to add
the tenth inch compensation for stretch. They also set the bridge saddle
perpendicular to the strings. Steel-stringed guitars need a slanted
saddle because the amount of sharpness from stretching increases with
the diameter of the string. The holes in the face needed to be plugged
and the new bridge made with the necessary
compensation so that the guitar could be played in tune.

Picture 4 shows the method used for masking gluing areas when
finishing the guitar. The same method was used for the bridge. A masking
piece was put in place, the guitar finished smooth, over the mask, then
someone had to cut through the finish and lift out the mask. A lip of
finish was allowed under the edges of both pickguard and bridge, so as
to reduce the potential for errors to be visible. There are two problems
here:

1. In the intervening years manufacturers have listened to repair people
and learned NOT to glue pickguards directly to the wood of a guitar top,
because over the years the plastic shrinks and causes cracking in the
wood surface. I used shellac to finish over the bare wood and
double-stick adhesive to reattach the pickguard.

2. Because of the stresses caused by string tension, it is preferable to
have a slightly less visually perfect joint and run the glue joint to
the edges of the bridge. This was done when the new bridge was put on.

Pictures 5 and 5a show that this guitar was made during the period
when Gibson first fitted the neck and then put the top on over the joint
before adding the fingerboard, making the joints very difficult to get
apart for repair.

Picture 5a also shows that the tenon was not cut straight sided, but
curves away from the sides of the joint starting from about halfway down
the side of the guitar. Pictures 10 and 11 show the modifications made
to produce a standard, tight-fitting joint.

Pictures 12 through 17 show the making of the new bridge. The spaces
for the inlays were hand fitted after the initial routing, so there was
very little gap, and some ebony dust mixed into the epoxy used to glue
the inlays into place so as to make the joint invisible.

In picture 21 you can see that I have fitted the bridge pin holes so
that the pins fit snugly but all the way seated. I believe that the
tendency of manufacturers to leave the pins sitting high leaves guitar
owners with the temptation to cram them into the holes as tightly as
possible, which in turn leads to cracked bridges. In reality it is not
necessary for the pins to be tight, or even snug. The ball end of the
string, when the string is pulled to
tension, rests against the side of the pin and is sufficient to prevent
it's falling out of the hole. Of course, the ball end must rest against
the side of the pin and not the end of it, for in the latter case the
string is capable of shooting the pin across a room.